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-A legal visitor in Cambodia was apparently swept up in a mass deportation to China.

2009.12.23Photo: Wikipedia

Phnom Penh airport

WASHINGTON—One of 20 ethnic Uyghur asylum-seekers deported from Cambodia to China as illegal migrants entered the country legally and on the advice of U.N. refugee officials, Radio Free Asia (RFA) has learned.

Aikebaerjiang Tuniyaz, 27, left China in March 2009 after serving a one-year jail term in Liudawan prison in Urumqi for allegedly “leaking secret information abroad.”

Tuniyaz, born in Aksu and a graduate of Shanghai Jiaotong University, spoke in 2007 with RFA’s Uyghur service about the shooting of a Uyghur man by Chinese security forces in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR).

Tuniyaz entered Thailand in early 2009 and sought asylum through the Bangkok office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), where a staff member suggested he might expedite the process by approaching the UNHCR office in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, instead, he said in an earlier interview.

He obtained a visa through the Cambodian embassy in Bangkok and entered Cambodia legally, he said. Tuniyaz was in Cambodia legally when deadly ethnic rioting erupted in Urumqi on July 5 this year.

The 20 Uyghur Muslims deported Saturday under intense Chinese pressure had fled to Cambodia in search of asylum after witnessing and documenting violent ethnic riots in the restive western Chinese region of Xinjiang this summer that left nearly 200 dead.

They had warned the UNHCR that they feared long jail terms or even the death penalty if they were sent back to China, according to statements obtained by The Associated Press.

A map showing China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and Cambodia.

Tuniyaz had been translating for and staying with the group of 21 Uyghurs in Phnom Penh—two are said to have fled—when the group was detained.

Cambodia said it expelled the Uyghurs because they had illegally entered the country. It has since been sharply criticized by Washington, which said the deportations would harm bilateral ties with the United States, though they may have strengthened relations with Beijing.

On Monday, China signed off on more than U.S. $1.2 billion in aid to Cambodia during a visit there by Vice President Xi Jinping. The assistance, including 14 agreements for grants and loans, ranges from help in building roads to repairing Buddhist temples.

More protests

The European Union said Monday it was “deeply concerned” about Cambodia’s decision to return the group of Uyghurs to China and urged Beijing to respect the rights of the returnees.

On Tuesday, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture Manfred Nowak slammed the deportations.

“This is a blatant violation of Cambodia’s obligations under the principle of non-refoulement as stipulated in Article 3 of the U.N. Convention Against Torture,” Nowak said in a statement.

Nowak said that he had reports of “severe torture” in Xinjiang following the unrest and that recent executions there violated “the most basic fair trial guarantees.”

“I am calling on the Chinese authorities to treat the 20 persons humanely upon return in accordance with international standards, to grant access to them in case they are detained and to afford them due process guarantees, if charged with criminal offenses”, he added.

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Beijing, China (CNN) — Three more people were sentenced to death for their roles in riots that killed about 200 in western China in July, state media reported Friday.

One more person got life in prison, while three others received jail terms, China Daily reported.

That brings to at least 20 the total number of people who have received the death penalty as a result of the unrest.

On Thursday, five others received death sentences in a trial involving 13 suspects, China Daily reported. The remaining eight received prison time, according to the newspaper.

By Thursday, 34 suspects had been prosecuted in the violent ethnic clashes in China’s Xinjiang autonomous region, the newspaper said.

The riots in July were prompted by long-simmering resentment between minority Uyghurs and majority Han Chinese. The Uyghurs are mostly Muslims in Xinjiang. Some Islamists refer to the region as East Turkistan.

The riots followed a June melee at a toy factory in Guangdong province, where many migrants, including Uyghurs, have moved in search of work, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The brawl led to the death of two Uyghurs, Xinhua said.

In September, China sent 7,000 officials to Urumqi to ease tensions after Han Chinese protested a series of random attacks, in which Uyghurs used syringes as weapons.

China’s constitution guarantees ethnic minorities equal rights. However, minority groups such as the Uyghurs say the Han discriminate, and ethnic tensions run deep.

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On the even of a high-level Chinese visit, Cambodia returns a group of asylum-seekers to China.

AFPChinese riot police patrol the streets in a truck with a banner promoting ethnic unity in Urumqi, July 9, 2009.

PHNOM PENH—Cambodian authorities have returned to China a group of ethnic Uyghurs who had sought asylum here, despite international concern that they could face torture and execution for allegedly taking part in deadly ethnic riots in China this year.

Cambodian Interior Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Khieu Sopheak said 20 Uyghurs —a distinct ethnic minority concentrated in China’s northwestern-most corner— were put on a special plane sent from China that left Phnom Penh International Airport late Saturday.

“They are going back to China,” he said.

Beijing has called the asylum seekers “criminals” without offering evidence to support the charge.

Rights groups, which urged Phnom Penh to stop the deportations, say Cambodia is bound by a 1951 convention on refugees pledging not to return asylum-seekers to countries where they will face persecution.

The move came a day before Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping visits Cambodia as part of a four-country tour.

Cambodia has already received more than U.S. $1 billion in foreign direct investment from China, which in October agreed to provide U.S. $853 million in loans to the impoverished country for dams, infrastructure, and irrigation projects.

Call to stop

The United States, the United Nations, and human rights groups had urged Cambodia to stop the deportation.

“We are deeply disturbed by the reports that the Cambodian government might forcibly return this group of Uyghurs without the benefit of a credible refugee status determination process,” U.S. Embassy spokesman John Johnson in Phnom Penh said earlier.

Washington had no immediate reaction to the Uyghurs’ return.

Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Koy Kuong, said in an interview Friday that Phnom Penh had determined the Uyghurs had entered the country illegally and would be returned to China.

“All 20 [Uyghurs] illegally entered Cambodia, because they have no immigration papers, no visa. Therefore they violate Cambodia’s 1994 immigration law. They have to be deported, because they are illegal immigrants,” Koy Kuong said.

Uyghur sources said the Uyghur asylum-seekers fear detention, torture, and possible execution in China for allegedly taking part in deadly ethnic riots in July in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.

Borders tighter

China has meanwhile tightened its southeastern border, Uyghur sources say, and has detained 31 Uyghurs since Sept. 15 in the southern cities of Shenzhen and Guangzhou and in the central city of Kunming, either for trying to flee the country or for allegedly aiding others in fleeing China.

The Chinese government has detained hundreds of Uyghurs, and at least 43 Uyghur men have disappeared in the wake of ethnic violence that erupted in Urumqi on July 5, according to Human Rights Watch, which says the actual number of disappearances is likely far higher.

Nearly 200 people were killed in the clashes, by the Chinese government’s tally. Twelve people have since been sentenced to death in connection with the violence.

Police have meanwhile detained more than 700 people in connection with the unrest, according to earlier state news reports.

Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities, and tensions have simmered in the Xinjiang region for years.

WASHINGTON—An exiled Uyghur Web editor has called for the release of dozens of his colleagues, who he says were detained by Chinese authorities in the wake of deadly ethnic violence in the Xinjiang regional capital, Urumqi, last July.

Dilmurat Parhat, co-founder of the Uyghur-run Web site Diyarim, closed by the authorities after the clashes, called for more international attention to the plight of dozens of Uyghur online activists now being held in specially set up centers.

“The situation of the Uyghur Web site organizers is very dangerous,” Parhat, who is himself currently in Britain and who has been warned not to return home for fear of arrest, said.

“I strongly request that all the organizations and individuals who support democracy should put great pressure on China and protect those people from being sentenced by a biased Chinese court system.”

He said he knows of four Uyghur full-time Web site managers now being held: his brother Dilshat Parhat, and Nureli, who founded the Uyghur Web site “Selkin,” their supervisor Muhemmet, and Obulkasim, an employee of the Web site “Diyarim.”

Three volunteer Web site supervisors—Muztagh, Lukchek, and Yanchukchi—were also detained, along with two women—Heyrinsa and Halnur—who were students at the Xinjiang Art Institute.

No comment was available from authorities in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), where most Uyghurs, a distinct Turkic minority, live.

New law on Web sites

In addition, a Uyghur university lecturer named Erkin was also detained, he said.

Parhat said his brother Dilshat Parhat was first detained July 24, along with Web site supervisor Obulkasim and seven other employees. They were released Aug. 2 and detained again on Aug. 7.

“That was the second time that he was arrested without being shown any warrant for his arrest. He has not been released since,” he added.

Regional Communist Party leaders in the northwestern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region blamed some Uyghur-run Web sites for fomenting ethnic strife following the July ethnic rioting, in which at least 197 people died.

The Xinjiang parliament recently passed a law forbidding anyone from using the Internet to support Uyghur aspirations for independent rule.

Uyghur sources said around 100 Web sites were closed down in the crackdown, which followed the violence in the regional capital, Urumqi, which overseas Uyghur groups say was triggered when police fired on a peaceful demonstration of Uyghurs, many of them students.

Ilshat Hassan, U.S.-based spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, said Chinese authorities appear to be detaining online editors and shutting down Web sites to conceal reports of alleged official brutality.

“They don’t want the people to know why they are arresting [dissidents] and what their fate is, so that they can rule by dividing,” Hassan said.

Official blame

Prominent Beijing-based Uyghur economist Ilham Tohti has said in the past that his sites have been shut down. He has been detained and interrogated for publicly taking issue with the official line.

Tohti’s blog, Uyghur Online, publishes in Chinese and Uyghur and is widely seen as a moderate, intellectual Web site addressing social issues. Authorities have closed it on several occasions.

Uyghur Online was specifically targeted, along with exiled Uyghur leader Rebiya Kadeer, in a July 5 speech by the governor of Xinjiang, Nur Bekri, as an instigator of the clashes.

Beijing has accused U.S.-based Uyghur businesswoman Rebiya Kadeer of stirring up unrest among Uyghurs back in China, a charge Kadeer has denied.

Parhat said his brother and colleagues were thought to be at a large unofficial detention facility near Urumqi airport set up to house a large number of detainees in the wake of the violence.

“It is unclear which prison they are in now,” he said.

“As I heard it, the place where they are being held is a temporary prison.”

“A friend who works for the police said it was a place to hold the young people who attended the July 5 incident.”

Xinjiang, Uyghurs cut off

He said the authorities have given no official word on any charges that might be brought against the men, nor have their relatives been allowed to visit them.

In a report Oct. 29, the nonprofit press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said its survey had found more than 85 percent of Web sites dedicated to the Uyghur community—in Uyghur, Mandarin, and English—were “blocked, censored, or otherwise unreachable” in Xinjiang.

Urumqi residents have frequently reported being cut off from the outside world entirely, as the authorities block media and social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Uyghurs, a distinct and mostly Muslim ethnic group, have long complained of religious, political, and cultural oppression by Chinese authorities, and tensions have simmered in the Xinjiang region for years.

Original reporting in Uyghur by Mehriban. Uyghur service director: Dolkun Kamberi. Translated from the Uyghur by Chughluk. Written for the Web in English by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Sarah Jackson-Han.